This is a version of a story I first published on Patheos several years ago. The 2024 election results have left many people and communities in a deep funk, so it seemed appropriate to repost it now.
Now that we’re past the election, how do you feel? I must admit that on the morning of Wednesday, November 6th, I awoke with a case of the blues. (Ironic word, isn’t it?) I’m slowly getting past it, and preparing how to cope over the next few years. (More on that in January.) But I also know that others, fearing persecution because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and even their gender, are not in a good place.
Some have fallen into a dark hole they see no escape from.
If this is you, know that what you’re feeling is not something new, or a feeling countless others haven’t experienced. Many people who we today view as happy and successful, have at one point in their lives believed that suicide was their best option. From Oprah to Demi Lovato to Owen Wilson, there are scores of well-known people who have thought about ending their lives. According to the National Institutes of Health, in the US, 9.3 million people a year contemplate suicide.
In the book Tools of Titans, successful author and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss makes the surprising admission that he too contemplated suicide. It happened when he was a young man and in danger of flunking out of Princeton University. He had lost all hope that things could get any better and saw no solutions. Thanks to the concern of a family member, fate intervened, and Ferriss had a change of heart.
Many years later, Ferris has offered valuable guidance for those who find themselves in the same dark place. I’ve used his writings to create a list of three good reasons not to kill yourself, his exact words appearing in italics below. While there are many reasons not to succumb to an act from which there is no return, these three may be the most important.
3 GOOD REASONS NOT TO KILL YOURSELF
1. The really bad thing you’re going through—it will pass.
It’s easy to blow things out of proportion, to get lost in the story you tell yourself, and to think that your life hinges on one thing you’ll barely remember 5 or 10 years later. That seemingly all-important thing could be a bad grade, getting into college, a relationship, a divorce, getting fired or being heckled on the Internet.
Or it could be the outcome of an important election. But the fact is, unless you are suffering from a terminal illness or a totally disabling injury, all things pass. Sure, there are benefits to living in the moment—but sometimes we have to take the long view. The great voids that appear in our lives, whether they involve splitting up with a significant other, losing a job, suffering through a financial or legal issue—are eventually filled. In time, and it may be months or years later, the bad thing you’re going through now becomes only a memory, replaced by a new and often better reality.
If you don’t believe me, check out this list of people, from Johnny Cash to Martin Luther King Jr, who were in such despair they almost killed themselves—only to make great contributions to our world. There are countless others whose names are not known, who have bounced back to make valuable contributions, even if it is just being there in body and spirit, for their friends, their families, their community.
2. Killing yourself can spiritually kill others.
Your death is not perfectly isolated. The guaranteed outcome of suicide is NOT things improving for you but creating catastrophe for others.
Ferriss compares killing yourself to “wearing a suicide bomber’s vest of explosives and walking into a crowd of innocents.” Your death is not just about you. It has repercussions for others that will last for months, years, and for those closest to you, for the rest of their lives.
If you have stopped caring about yourself, try to think about others in your life. Consider your parents, your siblings, your friends, anyone you encounter on a regular basis. How much pain and suffering will your act add to their lives? Will they ultimately blame themselves for your death? Will your death cause their own death, not physically but spiritually, their lives forever crushed by your actions?
3. There’s no guarantee that killing yourself will improve things.
The “afterlife” could be 1,000 times worse than life at its most painful. No one knows. It’s a terrible bet. At least here, in this life, we can tweak and change.
If you’re a Christian and believe in the concept of heaven and hell, then you may know that many see suicide as an unpardonable sin, akin to murder, and a one-way ticket to hell. No bright lights at the end of a tunnel, no reunions with deceased friends or family members—just, in the words of Matthew, “eternal fire.” No one knows for sure.
I share the Buddhist idea that we are here in this life to learn a specific lesson, and when that lesson is learned we are ready to move on to our next life, one step closer to God. Or we will need to return to some semblance of this life to learn the lesson again. Our suicide simply means we will wind up facing the same dire situation in our next life. This belief may be best summed up the 14th (and current) Dalai Lama:
Some people commit suicide; they seem to think that there is suffering simply because there is the human life, and that by cutting off the life there will be nothing. But that’s not the case; your consciousness will continue. Even if you take your own life, this life, you will have to take another body that again will be the basis of suffering. If you really want to get rid of all your suffering, all the difficulties you experience in your life, you have to get rid of the fundamental cause (greed, hatred and delusion) that gives rise to (your) suffering. Killing yourself isn’t going to solve your problems.
STILL THINKING ABOUT SUICIDE? CALL OR TEXT 988.
There’s someone waiting to talk or chat with you right now. Call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255. It’s free and it’s available 24 hours every day. On their website, at https://988lifeline.org, you’ll also find an online chat.
DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO MAY BE IN DANGER?
If you know someone you believe may be considering suicide, you could be the one to save their life. Take a minute to read this from The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention or this article. It will show you how you can be the one to help another through their darkest moment and help them carry on.
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